The Arcane Archer came up in another thread. As a prestige class that's become sad and pathetic since the update from 3.0 to 3.5, I feel sorry for it, and decided I wanted to see if I could give it back some of the kick it used to have. So, for your perusal, my updated Arcane Archer.

RequirementsBase Attack Bonus: +6Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise ShotSpells: Must be able to cast spells of at least 1st level.

Spellcasting - At every level except levels 1 and 6, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if he had also gained a level in whatever spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class level. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If a character had more than one spellcasting class before he became an arcane archer, he must decide to which class he adds each level of arcane archer for the purpose of determining spells per day and spells known.

Enhance Arrow - At 1st level, every nonmagical arrow an arcane archer nocks and lets fly becomes magical, gaining a +1 enhancement bonus. Unlike magic weapons created by normal means, the archer need not spend experience points or gold pieces to accomplish this task. However, an archer’s magic arrows only function for him. For every two levels the character advances past 1st level in the prestige class, the magic arrows she creates gain +1 greater potency (+1 at 1st level, +2 at 3rd level, +3 at 5th level, +4 at 7th level, and +5 at 9th level). The enhancement bonus granted by this ability stacks with the enhancement bonus granted by a magical or psionic weapon.

Imbue Arrow - At second level, an arcane archer can use a standard action to cast any area or touch spell he knows and deliver the spell through an arrow with a ranged attack. Casting a spell in this manner does not provoke an attack of opportunity, though firing the arrow still does. The spell must have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. When an arrow imbued with an area spell is fired, the spell's area is centered on where the arrow lands, even if the spell could normally be centered only on the caster. If an attack made with an imbued arrow holding a touch spell is successful, the attack deals damage normally, then the effect of the spell is resolved.

This ability allows the archer to use the bow's range rather than the spell's range. It takes a standard action to cast the spell and fire the arrow. The arrow must be fired in the round the spell is cast, or the spell is wasted.

Seeker Arrows - At fourth level, an arcane archer's arrows negate cover and concealment. The archer can launch his arrows at a target known to her within range, and the arrows travel to the target, even around corners. Only an unavoidable obstacle or the limit of the arrow's range prevents the arrows' flight.

Split Arrows - At 6th level, an arcane archer's arrows multiply in mid-air. Each arrow shot by the archer splits into an identical arrow, with the enhancements. This splitting effect does not duplicate the effects of Imbue Arrow or any similar effects that impart spells onto your arrows. Each new missile strikes the same target as the original it was split from, but uses a separate attack roll.

Arrow of Death - At 8th level, an arcane archer can create an arrow of death that forces the target, if damaged by the arrow’s attack, to make a DC 15 + 1/2 Arcane Archer level + 1/2 BAB Fortitude save or be slain immediately. It takes one day to make an arrow of death, and the arrow only functions for the arcane archer who created it. The arrow of death lasts no longer than one year, and the archer can only have one such arrow in existence at a time. An Arrow of Death may duplicated by the Split Arrows class feature, or any similar effect.

Improved Imbue Arrow - At 10th level, an arcane archer may imbue multiple arrows with a single touch spell he knows. Casting a spell in this manner is a swift action and does not provoke an attack of opportunity, though firing the arrows still do. The spell must have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. The spell remains charged on the archer's hand, imbuing each arrow he shoots until the beginning of his next turn, whereupon the energies will dissipate. If an attack made with an imbued arrow holding a touch spell is successful, the attack deals damage normally, then the effect of the spell is resolved.

This ability allows the archer to use the bow's range rather than the spell's range. The spell held with this ability may not be cast as a normal spell, and may only be cast by firing arrows imbued with the energy. Arrows enhanced by this ability do not impart their spell effect onto duplicate arrows that are created through the Split Arrows Arcane Archer ability, or any similar effect.

There have been a few small tweaks since I originally created this thread, but the class as written in this post is up-to-date and current.

Not bad. I'd feel the need to include that the seeker will also ignore that penalty to shooting a target when it's in melee with your allies. And negate such things as the attacker being unable to actually see the target (invisible, blindness, etc) so long as the archer can still sense the target via other means, and identify the correct location (via really good listen checks, detect magic, or what have you).

Also- is a fort. save really the one the archer needs? Most of its abilities are focussed on distance attacks. Reflex and Will are usually what keep you alive at range.

Include an option for the archer, as a full action, to take their move action and attack with no penalties. I think there's a feat for that somewhere. At higher levels, have this include movement that normally wouldn't allow such things- like swimming or spiderclimb. Since it's an elven focussed class and I really like the idea of elven wilderness surpremacy, and that would give this class that feature.

Not bad. I'd feel the need to include that the seeker will also ignore that penalty to shooting a target when it's in melee with your allies.

Since Precise Shot is a requirement for the class, adding that to the ability would be redundant.

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And negate such things as the attacker being unable to actually see the target (invisible, blindness, etc) so long as the archer can still sense the target via other means, and identify the correct location (via really good listen checks, detect magic, or what have you).

Doesn't a lot of that fall under the concealment rules? I'm not sure, so feel free to correct me.

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Also- is a fort. save really the one the archer needs? Most of its abilities are focussed on distance attacks. Reflex and Will are usually what keep you alive at range.

I thought about changing Fort to Will, but I wanted to see if anybody mentioned it before making the change. As it stands, those are the saves that are currently listed for the official Arcane Archer class.

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Include an option for the archer, as a full action, to take their move action and attack with no penalties. I think there's a feat for that somewhere.

Unlike melee combatants, it's not difficult for archers to manage a full attack. And if they absolutely need to move, Imbue Arrow is still available to pop off a damaging shot.

And the feats you're thinking of are Manyshot and Greater Manyshot.

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ASince it's an elven focussed class and I really like the idea of elven wilderness surpremacy, and that would give this class that feature.

This version is no longer an elf-only class. I felt the racial requirement was too limiting, so I removed it.

Looks better than the original, that's for sure.
I've spoilerblocked my breakdown, so if you feel like sitting through my ramblings, feel free, and if you can't be arsed it's not forced upon you.

Saves - I have to agree with TanaNari. As a casting class, it should have a high Will save. (although it makes me wish 3.5 included a medium save!)

Spellcasting - This remains sub-par because it is 5/10 casting. Considering that, as a casting class, this will already be several levels behind just because of the +6 BAB requirement, to then continue to lose caster levels for its entire career just makes this fall farther and farther behind, while still claiming to be a casting class. Boost this to the 9/10 casting enjoyed by Eldritch Knight, or the 10/10 casting enjoyed by the Knight Phantom, and it becomes considerable.

Enhance Arrow - I would remove the language about this stacking, or keep the language about it stacking but make it cap at +4, so as to reduce people using it to make Epic (+6 or better) arrows pre-Epic with it. Bring it more into line with Greater Magic Weapon.

Imbue Arrow - Nice, but I would remove the language about single-target spells and change it to the language about "if it would have affected multiple targets, it only affects the creature shot" that I think the original uses. ymmv.

Seeker Arrows - I would limit this to 3/day or 5/day, or perhaps "all the arrows you can shoot in your INT bonus rounds per day" or something. Straight up immunity to concealment and cover basically doesn't exist.

Split Arrows - This is essentially giving the class a +3 weapon ability for free. Coupled with the Greater Magic Weapon effect, I feel having this as a constant is ... unfair without being unbalancingly too good. Does that make sense?

Arrow of Death - I like this. The only thing I would add is that Arrows of Death split by the Splitting ability are not ALL arrows of death, only the original.

IIA - I like this as-is, mostly. I would just change the targeting language as per regular Imbue Arrow above.

Here's a suggestion on the spit/imbue effect (like the death arrow). "If the enchantment effect on an arrow requires a savings throw, the target only makes one save and applies it to the effect of both arrows."

That'll stop abuses of a lot more than just that little death arrow. There's a lot of "save vs suck/death" out there. Forcing a target to make two of them per hit is just abusive.

Responses in blue. Please keep in mind that these are just my thoughts, and are not meant as a personal attack against anybody's opinions.

Saves - I have to agree with TanaNari. As a casting class, it should have a high Will save. (although it makes me wish 3.5 included a medium save!)

It looks like I'll be changing the saves then.

Spellcasting - This remains sub-par because it is 5/10 casting. Considering that, as a casting class, this will already be several levels behind just because of the +6 BAB requirement, to then continue to lose caster levels for its entire career just makes this fall farther and farther behind, while still claiming to be a casting class. Boost this to the 9/10 casting enjoyed by Eldritch Knight, or the 10/10 casting enjoyed by the Knight Phantom, and it becomes considerable.

My original concern was that giving full progression spellcasting in addition to seriously beefing up the class features would make the class overpowered. The way I saw it was that a player would choose to take this prestige class for the purpose of focusing more intently on archery, and any additional spellcasting gleaned from it would just be a bonus. Since some of the best archers are already full progression spellcasting classes (Cleric, Psion), I felt that it would be fair to hit their spell progression in favor of enhancing their archery capability. However, if you feel that my thoughts are misguided in some way, let me know.

I know you mentioned the Eldritch Knight that has a 9/10 spell progression, but keep in mind it also doesn't really have any class features either. A more fair comparison would probably be the Spellblade.

Enhance Arrow - I would remove the language about this stacking, or keep the language about it stacking but make it cap at +4, so as to reduce people using it to make Epic (+6 or better) arrows pre-Epic with it. Bring it more into line with Greater Magic Weapon.

One of the major complaints about the original switch from 3.0 to 3.5 was that Enhance Arrow was made obsolete by magical weapons. If the two don't stack, I feel that this ability borders on worthless. Though, if you feel that going up to +5 (in addition to whatever bonuses are granted by the character's weapon) is too powerful, it may be acceptable to scale the ability back to +2 or +3 at the highest level, and replace those lost bonuses with a couple bonus feats.

Imbue Arrow - Nice, but I would remove the language about single-target spells and change it to the language about "if it would have affected multiple targets, it only affects the creature shot" that I think the original uses. ymmv.

The original was area-spells-only. The only real benefit to the ability was that you could use your bow's range for spells, which was only actually useful for any spell that was short range or centered on the caster. I wanted to pull away from that, and make it more akin to the Duskblade's Arcane Channeling. But instead of limiting it to touch spells, I expanded it to single-target spells. Do you really think it needs to include all spells? That would pretty much completely usurp the Spellwarp Sniper.

Seeker Arrows - I would limit this to 3/day or 5/day, or perhaps "all the arrows you can shoot in your INT bonus rounds per day" or something. Straight up immunity to concealment and cover basically doesn't exist.

I might have it eat up the character's swift action, but I don't know that it has to be a limited number per day. Cover and Concealment thoroughly screw martial characters, and that's always been a huge problem when facing against monsters that have a dozen and one ways to get concealment. (Displacer Beast, anyone?) By the time this ability is available, the character will be no lower than level 10.

I also purposely avoided adding a reliance on any specific stat. I wanted this prestige class to be open to all sorts of characters.

Split Arrows - This is essentially giving the class a +3 weapon ability for free. Coupled with the Greater Magic Weapon effect, I feel having this as a constant is ... unfair without being unbalancingly too good. Does that make sense?

In Champions of Ruin is a spell called Arrowsplit, which is a swift action spell that splits one arrow into 1d4+1 arrows. In the same book is the Splitting weapon enchantment, which makes a duplicate of every arrow fired from that bow. I didn't feel that having a class ability that mimics a weapon enchantment was really all that overpowered, especially since every single archery build in existence relies on having one of those bows.

Arrow of Death - I like this. The only thing I would add is that Arrows of Death split by the Splitting ability are not ALL arrows of death, only the original.

I actually considered not letting it split at all. But considering it scales with BAB (which means only +1 DC every two levels), I felt that it was only fair to allow it to split. It takes a full day to craft, and you can only have one at any given time. When spellcasters can Finger of Death or Holy Word every round, I find it only fair that a kill shot that takes 24 hours to craft get more than one chance to trigger.

IIA - I like this as-is, mostly. I would just change the targeting language as per regular Imbue Arrow above.

As a ranged character, i don't see any reason to set its HD higher than a D6. Maybe a D8. Skill points will probably be 4 + INT. I haven't considered the skills list yet, but I'll bring it up when I have.